September 02, 2008
"For I had gone down below their language"
The idealism of Plato informed the ancient Gnostics in their metaphysics, which counter to the
chauvinism against so-called Sophism in Antiquity, was rooted in a new Image of Man.
Coupled with this figure, which is of a different kind entirely than the self-image of preceding
generations (leaving Kings and Shamans be the category they are to themselves, as much as
they were laws unto themselves, that is) - were a new day, a new alertness, a new cosmology,
a new process of unveiling the true nature and reality of all mysteries, natural and supernatural.
In the Apocryphal accounts we find that when Adam is awoken from his sleep, which some Gnostic myths negate or translate into other things, he is addressed directly and replies to the call, either of his counterpart, Eve, or of
an angelic host. At the determining moment, which seals Adam's fate and plight, Eve turns to him and teaches him a secret; this secret in turn, unifies them in the capacity of "understanding more than their creator(s)".
Two people that are united in the confidence of a secret are unified continously, as they not only remind eachother of themselves, but also of the secret that they hold in common.
The same goes for the blessing of the brotherly bread and brotherly wine - given the context of a new covenant which is secret, which exist between a chosen company of friends, at the last supper. Here also Jesus divulges
a secret, and the secret which is shared is devoured and assimilated by his friends - this secret becomes Jesus among them, and Jesus in them - and will, with a bright flash of recognition, become the Christ in and among them through the mystery of Pentecost.
The Protennoia speaks of her first descent thusly:
I am the first one who descended on account of my portion which remains, that is, the
Spirit that dwells in the soul, which originated from the Water of Life, and out of the
immersion of the mysteries. And I spoke, I, together with the Archons and Authorities.
For
I had gone down below their language
,and I spoke my mysteries to my own - a hidden mystery -
and the bonds and eternal oblivion were nullified. And I bore fruit in them,
that is, the Thought of the unchanging Aeon, and my house, and their Father. And I went
down to those who were mine from the first, and I reached them and broke the first strands
that enslaved them. Then everyone of those within me shone, and I prepared a pattern for
those ineffable Lights that are within me. Amen. Trimorphic Protennoia, (NHC XIII,1.)
Christ became Silence, so that the secret that exists prior to that Silence might have an opportunity to
resurrect in us and ascend through us, and return as fullness which encompasses all stages of existence,
beyond the categories, and below language.
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September 01, 2008
Blogging Hotspots:The Forbidden Gospels Blog
Blogging Hotspots: The Forbidden Gospels Blog
Professor April DeConick belongs to the new generation of scholars who have engaged the background for the New Testament and it's reception with less filers and academic bias than their preceeding generation.
To be said for their predecessors is that they actually anticipated, and were pretty much agreed upon that such scholars were needed in the future.
Dr. DeConick teaches early Jewish and Christian thought to students at Rice University in -
Houston,Texas, I feel quite confident that her students will in the future become the new pioneers who will take over the heavy responsibility of opening up the past to their generation. The inheritance from the Jewish and Christian religion in our culture, even that of heterodox,heretic and "forbidden" - are formidable, and what is not brought into consciousness, good or bad, are bound to participate in us as an autonomous, dischordant presence, the better we have communicators, analysts, exegetics and discerning historians - engage the topic for us and give us occasion to realise what is going on.
I thoroughly enjoy Dr. DeConick's occasional Apocryphote fragments from the heterodox/heretical/forgotten traditions of Christendom, which themselves merit a visit to her blog.
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August 29, 2008
A prayer of Vladimir Soloviev to the Divine Sophia
"In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Ain-Soph, Jah, Soph-Iah.
With an unutterable, terrible and almighty name
I adjure the gods, demons,peoples and all living beings.
Gather into one the rays of your power, enclose the source
of your desire and be the participants of my prayer:
let us exert outselves to catch the pure azure of Zion,
let us discover the priceless pearl of Ophira, and may
the roses and lilies be united in the vale of Sharon.
The most holy Divine Sophia, the essential image of
beauty and the joy of the all-high God, the radiant body
of eternity, the soul of the world and the unique queen
of all souls, with the boundlessness of thy unspeakable and
gracious first and beloved son I beg of thee: descend into
the prison of the soul, fill our gloom with thy brilliance,
with the fire of thy love having melted the shackles of
our spirit, present unto us the light and freedom, in a visible
and substantial way manifest thyself unto us, incarnate
thyself in us and in the world, resurrecting the fulness
of the ages, that the deeps may be encompassed and that
god may be all in all."
Vladimir Soloviev.
Amen
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August 28, 2008
Emergence from Silence, to silence?
I notice that while I have promoted the Silence as a primary context for
reorientation, the ground upon which one can stand as well as the sky above
that meets it. and reaches through us to itself - a numbing phenomenon of
constant zero response meets it. The former blogpost is part 1 of a series
I must write; it's not even pleasant to do so. I should perhaps given a personal
background for it, something to which it could attach, zoom into the place where
I part company with the great shout for Revolution, Armageddon, Justice and Purgation of
Paradise; why I must evaluate our modernity with one foot in the trenches.
Understanding, in any private span of thought, is not capital letter "T" Truth, it is
intimate and ideally part of who you are - it situates you right in what you understand,
there are no sense of distance in it. Therefore we need to have a conversation. We really
do, about what we understand, and how it is even possible to do so. Language is a trap,
but it is more of a beartrap than a hole covered over with branches and filled with spikes -
to be safe from calamity, you have to spring it, with a twig or a branch or something
expendable. Transport it all into the situation of mind, and you will see voluntarily
sidetracking into thoughts which has fleeting, transitory function looks the part, and
as long as we keep trying to keep up with the world, it is of infinite supply.
Continue reading "Emergence from Silence, to silence?"
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